The mosquitos had paid my precious skin a visit, not bad but enough to make me wonder why I hadn’t applied more of the mosquito repellent. At least I’d slept the better part of the night whereas Mirsada had chose to wait for the stars to get clearer until giving up around 04.

The ballooning was so worth it, the sights was just awesome, words can’t really justify it so I’ll put up more photos later.After returning to the bedouin camp we had a quick breakfast and got on the bus back to Amman. I looked forward to watching some TED episodes on my iPod or enjoy some good music but it had off coursed got drained somehow. I borrowed a copy of Lonely Planet – Jordan by a guy in the tour for some reading.

Back at the hotel I got a few photo copies from the guidebook since the one we brought was useless when it came to maps. A dinner later we went out for some arguilleh (water pipe) at a venue called Grappa which of course showed the european championship in soccer. Apparently Sweden was playing but both me and Mirsada ended up with our backs to the projected screen, what a shame.

After Mirsada and I taught Hamzeh’s german boss Hans how to smoke and having a few non-alcoholic drinks we left and headed back to the hotel. The taxi-driver asked where we were from and put on some german umpa-umpa mixed with “Silent Night” in german. It was close that I forgave him for charging us per person and not per taximeter with that music playing loud the whole way back.

The alarm went off early, the guide wanted us to leave the hotel by eight so that we would be in Petra by ten. This was a bit confusing since it only took about 30 minutes to walk from the hotel to the treasury of Petra last night. The guide had done this tour before and was a better judge of people in groups than yours truly.

Walking down the siq, the narrow valley before getting into Petra, was a sight itself but seing the treasury carved out of stone appear out of nowhere was truly an experience. The guide knew his stuff and apparently this place had been in control by quite a few different groups throughout history. The whole city was considered sacred and the carved out buildings where thought to be a home after death to the rich and famous of that time.

Apart from the dwelling of the deceased the place provided some awesome sceneries, especially at the top of the city some 90 minutes and thousand steps up. After snapping more photos than needed and some rest we started to head back. We were supposed to meet back at the hotel at 1530 and while we saw this might be tight we were by far not the last. An hour after agreed time we left Petra with a guide thanking the punctual group.
Next stop was Wadi Rum, the place where Lawrence of Arabia lived most of his time here and a nice desolate desert in general. We took a 4-wheel drive out to a conveniently climbable sand dune to watch the sunset. Muy nice, especially since the full moon rose at the same time in the other direction.

After a bedouin dinner at a camp and some attempts to dance to the local music we went off to bed. After a few minutes we thought that it would be nicer to watch the stars and sleep outside. Said and done, it would be a short night since tomorrow Mirsada and myself had signed up for a balloon ride at 0600.

After a long and healthy night in Jerusalem Hotel we woke up ready for the wedding tour. The breakfast buffet had more western alternatives that I took just to be sure that my stomach would behave. After greeting some of the other guests we got on the bus.

The very first stop was at a supermarket to stock up cookies and chips and such, I was very pleased to find that my old love from US Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo was to be found, a cooled Star Bucks vanilla frappuccino. Here flanked by another addiction at the time, Skittles. I really should find a shop that has these in Gothenburg. A six pack of Mountain Dew would also fill out the empty space in my fridge quite well.

The first real stop was Madaba, famous for its mosaic and especially a 25×5 meters map over the surrounding countries. It was quite detailed and impressive for being done in the 6th century. A few “Yalla Yalla” later and we were off to the next stop, Mount Nebo.

Mount Nebo is supposed to be where Moses is buried and early christians had built a church to revere the site in late 4th century. The site has a really nice panorama over “the holy land” and one should be able to see Jerusalem and Jericho from here but it was hard when we were there.

Next stop was Petra, or to be precise Crown Plaza in Petra. A very nice Hotel with a very nice buffet. Unfortunately we were on a schedule if we wanted to see Petra by night so in the middle of a interesting conversation with another guest we had to leave. Petra by night was fair enough, but I took Mirsada’s word that it would be more impressive in daylight, despite the lack of live bedouin music performances. Back to the nice hotel for some 6 hours sleep before checking out tomorrow morning.